to lift her eyes from her plate--the aunt sourer than the vinegar
cruet--and we--alas! the stranger, stepping in to take pot-luck--we,
poor old Christopher North, thanklessly volunteering to help the
cock-y-leekie, that otherwise would continue to smoke and steam
unstirred in its truly classical utensil! What looking of inutterable
things! As impossible to break the silence with your tongue, as to break
pond-ice ten inches thick with your knuckle. In comes the cock that made
the cock-y-leekie, boiled down in his tough antiquity to a tatter. He
disappears among the progeny, and you are now tied to the steak. You
find there employment sufficient to justify any silence; and hope during
mastication that you have not committed any crime since Christmas, of an
enormity too great to be expiated by condemnation to the sulks.

A Literary Dinner! apparently the remains of the Seven Young Men
sprinkled along both sides of the table--with here and there "a
three-times skimmed sky-blue" interposed; on each side of the Lord of
the Mansion, a philosopher--on each hand of the lady, a poet--somewhere
or other about the board, a Theatrical Star--a Strange Fiddler--an
Outlandish Traveller--and a Spanish Refugee. As Mr. Wordsworth rather
naughtily sayeth,

"All silent, and all damn'd!"

Still the roof does not fall, although the chandelier burns dim in
sympathy,

"And all the air a solemn stillness holds."

Will not a single soul in all this wide world, as he hopes to be saved,
utter so much as one solitary syllable? Oh! what would not the lady and